General Dahlia Chat 2024

Krista · 2024-01-05T01:50:48+00:00

When do we grow up and stop ordering more tubers than we can possibly fit into the space we have, for the next season? Is that something I can look forward t...

SteveM

NCDahlia

NCDahlia Your passion shows!

Krista

NCDahlia Beautiful, your dahlia field will be spectacular this year — as will your tuber harvest this fall most certainly!

blown_dry

NCDahlia Rooting for you!

Teddahlia

Bedding dahlia; ,almost BB in size

SteveM

Teddahlia With the increasing popularity of the Dahlia I predict it won't be too long before a GMO Blue dahlia is introduced as a border dahlia. I wonder how many tradidional breeders will allow a GMO blue gene into their garden.

Veryzer

NCDahlia The hardware cloth is to protect against voles? How long does the cloth remain intact? That would be a heck of a job to do every few years.

MIDahlias

I want to be a lazy gardener; therefore, I like to experiment.
In a 2022 meeting Ted responded to a question I asked "Swan Island doesn't stake"

So I chose not to stake. After deer walked through my garden and two rows were wiped out by straight line winds.... I swore I would never plant without staking.

Here it is 2024, and until today I haven't started planting. What did I do today? Planted about 20 tubers at church and I'm not going to stake them. Will I regret this? Probably.

Is there anyone besides Swan Island than can share no support dahlia growing with positive results?

Juliarugula

MIDahlias last year I didn’t stake my church garden, which is my “overflow” space. They did fine. I was surprised. I think I coincidentally planted a lot of varieties which tended towards short and bushy, which had a lot to do with it. But it seemed like even some taller growing varieties stayed shorter. I’m not sure why. Maybe they got more sun than at home? Maybe because most were cuttings? Not sure…

I didn’t do the Swan Island thing of piling on extra soil around the base midway through the season, FWIW.

This year I plan to corral the church garden as I’ve planted several varieties that I know get quite tall.

JillAnne

MIDahlias One of the history minded dahlia growers posted that ages ago (20's? 50's?) no one staked their dahlias and they just sort of flopped over when they wanted it and everything was okay, kind of like a tomato plant. Having forgotten to stake one bed lastyear, that was my experience. They flopped, they were fine, I probably got less flowers because some flopped inconsiderately on top of a neighbor, but I got decent enough tubers

blown_dry

[unknown] I have never staked a dahlia, but I feed lackadaisically and don't have much heat and so my plants stay about five feet tall. I pinch the centers early and cut deeply when I cut stems. I also grow in raised/mounded beds exclusively so I can plant kind of deep and not worry about there being not enough drainage. I lose a branch here and there.

Veryzer

blown_dry Would you explain cutting deeply? I've seen that term used here in the context of keeping a plant flowering and I get the sense it's somewhere below the base of the flower stem.

blown_dry

Veryzer It means I cut below the node where the bloom stem attaches to the plant and maybe below the node below that, instead of cutting the bloom stem only.

calico20hill

5 of my 6 raised beds planted...Will do the 6th after lunch. Its down to which growing seedlings and tubers would I most miss if I didn't find space for! (The Hollyhills are all in and so are those from my other favorite hybridizers). And lots and lots of Salish Seedlings!

THe weather is perfect for planting out today! It is comfortably warm, not hot, with rain coming tomorrow.

Teddahlia

I planted a row that is on a slight slope. Like a dummy, I chose to plant going down hill. Several times over the years, we have found that older people like us need to plant going uphill as going downhill is really hard on the legs. Why did I not remember that? And when I told Margaret, she was not sympathetic. Once I made the superhuman effort to get up off the ground, I sat in a chair for 10 minutes to recover. If I were in my mid 20s I would not pay attention to this post and forget it I until turned 70 and tried planting going downhill.
I DID NOT BUY THIS BICOLOR FLOWER AT FRED MEYER.

Bessie

Teddahlia , thanks for the update giving us the reality of what it takes to grow dahlias. Dahlia farming is hard work on older bodies!

Teddahlia

Dahlia Talk is 7PM tonight Pacific Time. Here is the link if you do not have it.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87070954664?pwd=OUhWOG90UUpHNENiMU5sWHZpczFEdz09

JillAnne

Teddahlia Thankyou!!! i have it on my calendar and I am determined not to miss it. though it is past my east coast bed time. Much appreciate you sharing it.

bloomhjelm

On a different topic there was a good question about productivity of mother tubers versus new tubers in the Australia dahlia growers group on Facebook. I do wonder if mother tubers are better at making their replacements.

blown_dry

bloomhjelm Interesting! This would jive with ending up with monster clumps when not divided regularly, and with the practice of not dividing poor tuber producers every year.

katyaker

bloomhjelm That is interesting! I sometimes keep mother tubers if a new plant does not produce many tubers, although I try to keep another, often small, tuber attached to the mother tuber. I will have to keep track of production from these compared to first year tubers this year.

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